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Two reports on the Sahel: Mali & Niger

The first is a BBC News photo essay 'The war in the desert; Why the Sahara is terror's new front line'. IT has a few interesting, though not new quotes. This refers o the UN peacekeepers, almost 14,000 peacekeepers from nearly 60 different countries:

Different countries accept different levels of risk. Many are simply going through the motions - counting down the days, trying to stay alive, and having little real impact in a place where it’s nearly impossible to keep the peace.

Then citing the UN Force Commander: I need better equipped and better trained contingents. I need more vehicles… to protect my people against the IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and mines and so on and I need to upgrade the training level of my contingents.

Then the trade in migrants / refugees in Niger: Criminal gangs moved in and the desert tour guides became human traffickers, carrying lorry-loads of migrants north to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. This thriving industry provides both cash and cover for the radical, violent, extremist groups assembling across the Sahara.

On external funding of mosques and schools:Towering over a second meeting is a new white and green mosque, which smells of fresh paint. The UN says Qatari money paid for the building - like Saudi Arabia, here and in other parts of Africa they have a programme that provides new mosques and preachers to teach a very conservative form of Islam.

The references to an attack @ Timbuktu are to an attack in April 2018, so this report may have taken time to reach publication

The second article, published yesterday in 'The Guardian' is headlined: 'New terrorist threat as EU stance on migrants triggers disquiet in Niger;

Efforts to buttress Europe’s borders have left people smugglers in Niger jobless and ripe for exploitation by jihadist groups'. It opens with:

Thousands of men who transported, fed, and housed the hundreds of thousands of migrants who used to cross the impoverished west African country are now unemployed and could easily be exploited by one of the major jihadist groups operating in the region, said leaders in the remote former migrant hub of Agadez.

UN peacekeeping operations (catch all)

A new thread as the previous thread somehow was merged into the current thread on Mexico! So some work underway and in a moment this thread will be populated - with this post becoming the last. It happens.

Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-28-2018 at 02:01 PM.
Reason: 42,110v 2yrs ago though

Congo’s “Mr. X”: The Man who Fooled the UN

A fascinating 2016 account by an American who served with the UN in Eastern Congo, in Duke University's journal 'World Politics'. It starts with:

When Daniel Fahey visited eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as coordinator of the U.N.’s Group of Experts, he found a charismatic charlatan known as “Mr. X” under the protection of the U.N. A star witness in a murder trial, Mr. X had convinced the U.N. of his tall tales. Fahey shows how Mr. X’s story sheds light on the emerging role of intelligence in peacekeeping operations and the unpredictable effects of its failures.

UN soldiers safe, not the civilians

From Amnesty International and the report starts:

The United Nations must carry out a thorough investigation into UN peacekeeping troops’ response to a recent attack that killed as many as 100 civilians in a displaced persons camp in the Central African Republic, Amnesty International said today in a new report.

According to multiple eyewitnesses, UN peacekeepers did not engage an attack by an armed group but instead retreated in an armoured vehicle to their central base, leaving thousands of civilians unprotected at the camp in Alindao on 15 November.

An immediate and impartial inquiry must focus, in particular, on whether the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) failed in its duty to protect the lives of more than 18,000 people residing at the site.